Algorithms, sanctions and quality to Google, how to understand traffic drops
It has been a little over a month since Google launched its latest update to the algorithm, the December 2020 Core Update, and many are still struggling with the analysis of its effects and attempts to lift the site after the decline. But how do you really know when traffic is decreasing due to an update and, when, instead, other factors such as manual actions, sanctions etc.? A former Googler accompanies us to the discovery of all these elements, because it is only by knowing their differences and the consequences they generate that you can react with the right strategy.
Understanding how algorithms and manual actions work
Our guide in this complex field is Pedro Dias, who worked in the Google Search Quality team between 2006 and 2011, and who in the article published on Search Engine Land wants to emphasize that his perception could therefore be currently obsolete, since things at Google can change at a reasonably fast pace.
In any case, thanks to his work experience at “the most sought after input box on the Web”, Dias offers us useful and interesting information on “what makes Google work and how the search works, with all its nuts and bolts“, analyzing “this tiny input field and the power it exerts on the Web and, ultimately, on the lives of those who manage a Web site”, so as to clarify the concept of penalties and recognize the various forms and cau